Yes, you are right. I am very critical and hard... even on myself. This is one of his complaints. I tried to change the way I expressed myself... you know, the whole using "I" statements, but he would get defensive just the same. For instance, if I said "I feel xyz when you do abc" he would jump up and say that I was calling him whatever xyz happened to be. Then we'd get stuck on trying to separate my perception from his, trying to make him see I wasn't trying to call him xyz, but rather that his action was xyz... increasing frustration, increasing disappointment, we never resolved the issue.

Next issue came up, rinse and repeat of before. Until we had a huge pile of issues to untangle, but could never seem to do it successfully.

This dynamic is why he doesn't like talking with me... because it becomes a never ending circle. The issue wasn't that we didn't talk enough... god knows we did! It was that we could never accomplish much by talking, and he always said he felt worse after a discussion. We didn't know how to do it right...

I tried to be less critical, maybe I didn't do enough? Maybe I didn't do it right? Too little too late?

Thanks for pointing this out...

SD

Or maybe he isn't marriage material. It takes two. You have to complain. He has to be willing to address complaints.

You could always ask for how you can deliver complaints in such a fashion where he doesn't feel attacked, but does understand that things he does impact you.

Ultimately, you only have control of your side of the street and even if you clean up what is under your control there is no guarantee he will adequately address his issues.

But you have to focus on your part until it's obvious how he will consistently respond.

Sure thing, NED